Note: Aurora in these stories is written as being on the milder end of the Asperger's spectrum (the story Briars and Roses shows more from her POV).

The poem for this chapter is Emily Dickinson's '"Hope" is the Thing with Feathers'

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

X

It was a small gathering as war councils went, just Belle, Gaston, Mulan, and Aurora. Four of them, unless Philip-Roland was included. Aurora hadn't let him out of her sight since the attack. For now, he was sleeping. Though, remembering some of the war councils in her father's court, Belle supposed a screaming baby wouldn't be too out of place.

Belle, put down the letter Rumplestiltskin had written her. The others had already shared the advice Rumplestiltskin had given them: run. He had reminded Aurora of her duty to protect her son and told Gaston and Mulan they had a duty to take Belle and the princess to safety, by force if necessary.

"You're not going to leave, are you?" Gaston said. "Do you have another plan?"

Belle bit her lip. As a fiancé, Gaston had been difficult, always seeing the person he expected her to be instead of the person she was. As a friend and ally, he was still difficult. Only, now, it was because he seemed to see her too well.

"I think I do," she said. "We need to take Cora's powers away from her."

Aurora looked up from Philip-Roland. "You mean the way the Blue Fairy took away Rumplestiltskin's powers?"

"Not exactly. That was a very special spell." Involving magic ink that Belle didn't have and Rumple had used up. "But, the Blue Fairy was able to take away Queen Regina's magic as well."

"It couldn't have worked too well," Mulan said. "Or Regina would never have cast that spell."

"What the Blue Fairy did to Regina was never meant to be more than a temporary measure," Belle said. "Rumplestiltskin explained it to me."

It was odd, the way she kept casually saying things like that. Rumplestiltskin explained it to me. I read it in one of his books. I was with him when this spell was cast. He found out Regina was holding me prisoner.

She never seemed to give details like, He's desperate to save his son. He cast this spell to when he found me bleeding to death in Regina's torture chamber.

Or, as in this case, He told me this when I woke up screaming from a nightmare.

She had dreamed—no, she had relived a day Regina had been especially enraged and determined to make Belle pay for it. Belle remembered being crumpled on the dungeon floor, vomiting blood while Regina stood over her, gloating.

"Your little imp thinks he's so clever," Regina had said. "He thinks I can't hurt anything that matters to him. I suppose he's right. After all, if he cared for you, he'd have come for you by now, wouldn't he? But, you'll do." She had known Regina was lying—she had told herself, barely able to think through the pain inside her, she knew it was all lies.

But, it had hurt all the same.

That was what she told Rumple as he enfolded her protectively. If he could have made his whole body into a shield for her, she thought, he would. Even now, she could remember feeling his grief in the way he held her. "I'm sorry, Belle. I'm so sorry."

She had clung to him, the shudders from her nightmares easing. Belle felt so safe as he cradled her against his chest, but all Rumple could see was how he'd failed her. "Why?" she asked. "It was Regina. What did you do?"

"I cast a curse. A clever one," he said the words as if they were poison in his mouth. "Snow White and her prince captured Regina—Reul Ghorm had cast a spell that stripped the queen of her powers. For a little while. But, Snow White didn't want to kill her stepmother, and I—" his voice turned even more bitter, "—I wanted her to live. I made a dagger. When Snow White offered her mercy and life, if Regina took that blade and tried to kill her instead, the curse would come upon her. She lost all power to ever hurt Snow White or anything that belonged to Snow White in this world." He stroked her hair, pulling her even closer. "I could have changed the curse," he said. "I should have. I could have found a way to include her prisoners, her slaves. You could have been protected by it. I'm sorry."

Belle, clinging to him as tightly as he clung to her, had learned enough by then to know why he hadn't changed it. Magic comes with a price. But, the curse he described, at its heart, was a simple balancing. Regina was trapped by her own injustice. Including Snow White's people under its protection was a small thing, a natural extension. They were the princess' people, the ones she had dedicated her life to protecting. Stretching it to protect a woman Snow White had never heard of, one from another land, with no bond or loyalty to the young ruler would have been another matter entirely. Belle had no connection to that feud. The price—and the consequences—would have been much worse.

"I don't understand," she said, partly to distract him, partly because even nightmares couldn't drive away her curiosity for long. "If they could take Regina's powers away, even if it was temporarily, why not just cast that spell again?"

"Because Reul Gorm's not a fool," Rumplestiltskin said. "The spell was linked to the caster, and she couldn't hold it forever."

Belle didn't need to hold it forever, just long enough for them to take the dagger from Cora. She outlined her plan. "I have the fairy wand, the one Rumple showed me how to use to help Philip-Roland. We can go to the dwarves' mines. Regina will have made sure any fairy dust they'd processed was left behind. It's too dangerous to her.

"The trick will be to get Cora before she knows what we're doing. It will have to be done quickly. We strip her of her powers before she can act. Then, we take the dagger from her before she can summon Rumplestiltskin—or, at least, before she can give him any orders. Once we have the dagger, we hand it over to him."

"What if whoever grabs the dagger decides to keep it?" Aurora said reasonably.

All right, Belle had been expecting that. And Aurora's great talent was to calmly ask the questions no one else wanted to admit thinking of. "Cora's clever enough to control Rumplestiltskin," Belle said. "I don't think anyone else here is. You're the only ones I've trusted with the full truth about the dagger, how it can be used to kill him as well as control him." Belle swallowed. It hadn't been an easy decision. She thought she could trust these three with her life—but it wasn't her life she'd trusted them with. True, they were good and honorable, but good and honorable people had locked Rumple in a dark hole in a mine.

The same mines Belle wanted them to go to now to save him. She doubted he'd be amused by the irony.

"Belle's right," Gaston said. "Anyone who tries to command Rumplestiltskin is a fool. Even Cora's failed at it. That's how he was able to send us a message."

"If she failed," Mulan said. "What if this is a trick of hers?"

"Then she's failed again," Belle said. "Rumple's messages said for us to abandon the castle and leave for another world. We aren't doing that. And I don't think even Rumplestiltskin would expect us to go to the mines. If you agree it's a good plan?"

"It's a terrible plan," Gaston said. "We have to get up close to Cora before either she or the Dark One can stop us. Even if we take away her powers, she still controls him and the people whose hearts she's taken. But, it's a better plan than your husband's. You're right. If we can stop Cora, we have to try."

"Hook knows the layout of Cora's fortress, how it's guarded, where she sleeps," Mulan said. "If we can get him to tell us, it will help."

"How?" Belle said, remembering when Rumple had interrogated the thief, Robin Hood. "He only came to us because Cora wanted him dead—and because Rumplestiltskin put him under a curse. He hates Rumple more than he hates Cora. He won't help us save him."

"Alive, he still has a chance to kill Rumplestiltskin," Aurora said. She paused, glancing at Mulan. "In his message to me, Rumplestiltskin told me what happened to Philip. Or some of it. I think he was trying to spare me some of the details." As always, Aurora sounded calm—unnaturally calm—as she spoke. Only the way her hands tightened around Philip-Roland, knuckles turning white, betrayed her feelings. "He told me how the curse he put on Hook works. Each message he delivered gave him more time. But, he has to deliver all the messages to live. And I haven't let him deliver the one he has for Philip-Roland."

Gaston couldn't figure that one out. "He sent a letter to the baby?"

Belle nodded to herself, understanding. "He sent a message to everyone Hook might have killed. If Philip-Roland had died, Hook would die, too." Gaston and Mulan looked approving. Belle couldn't tell what Aurora thought. She seemed to be the only one troubled by what Rumple had done.

That didn't mean she wouldn't make use of it. "So, Hook helps us, and you'll let him live. That works."

"What about the people?" Mulan said. "If we fail or if Cora attacks the castle while we're away, what happens to them?"

"There's no reason they can't use Rumple's doorways before we leave," Belle said. "They can go to another world, a safer one."

"Will they still be under the curse? The part that's stopped us from aging or changing?" Aurora asked.

"Probably," Belle said, trying to remember everything she knew about the curse. "It was a change that happened when it was cast. Where we are doesn't affect it."

"Then, they'll have to hide the fact they don't age until the curse is broken," Aurora said. "That could cause problems."

Like being accused of being demons and getting scourged by clerics, Belle thought. Or being tortured by someone who wanted the secret of the magic that extended their lives. "They could stay here and hope we get back safely," Belle said. "But, I'm hoping any fighters will go with us. The people left behind won't be able to put up much resistance if Cora attacks."

"Can you transform them?" Aurora asked. "Make them something Cora would ignore?" Belle stared at her. She hadn't even looked at spells of transformation, but she knew making a man into a mouse was hardly as simple as the tales made out. She wouldn't know where to start.

Aurora went on, "There are stories about curses on the Dark One's treasures, thieves who were changed into beasts for trying to steal from him. Could you use one of them to make people something Cora would ignore?"

Many of those stories ones Rumple had spread himself after Robin Hood broke into the castle. But, that didn't mean they weren't true. "He's cursed some of his things," Belle said. "Some of them have magic that would interfere with a curse." Like the wand Robin Hood had stolen.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Gaston asked, obviously imagining Belle picking up the wrong thing and becoming a toad.

"The curses won't work on me," Belle said. She decided now was not the time to explain all the details Rumple had put in their marriage contract clearly stating her rights to everything he owned, possessed, or had "borrowed" (with or without the owner's permission). "But, they'd work on anyone else. It would be dangerous. If we lose, there won't be anyone to lift the curse."

"We'll give them the choice," Aurora said. "They can escape or stay. If they stay and we win, Rumplestiltskin can change them back." She looked at Philip-Roland. "They have a better chance of being reunited with their families if they stay."

A better chance. Being transformed and left on a shelf of the Dark Castle for a lord who might or might not ever return—and who might or might not be free to change them back—was their best chance for a happily ever after.

Belle took a deep breath. She remembered the day in her father's war room when they had learned Avonlea had fallen. There was nothing between them and the Ogres, no chance of rescue or escape, no hope.

Except, she hadn't given up hope. Surrender to the Ogres was never an option. If they couldn't give up, then what could they do except believe there was another option?

And there had been. Rumplestiltskin had come. The evil Dark One had had mercy on them—no matter what Rumple said, Belle knew it was his compassion that saved them. He could have demanded the slavery of all the people in her father's lands, and it would have been better than the fate the Ogres offered. He could have torn out their hearts, the way Cora would, or demanded every child in their lands.

Instead, he had taken a single serving maid, one who barely knew how to hold a rage when she dusted. Because he was lonely. Because he couldn't leave children to be torn apart by Ogres.

This would work. They would save Rumplestiltskin and themselves. Because giving up was not an option, so what could they do but face the choices left to them with hope?